Sir John, a distinguished physician, was the younger son of Sir John Pringle of Stichell, Roxburghshire, and was born on the 10th of April 1707. He was educated at home under a private tutor, and subsequently at St Andrews, at Edinburgh, and at Leyden, where he took the degree of Doctor of Physic. He at first settled in Edinburgh as a physician, but was soon after appointed assistant and successor to the professor of moral philosophy in the university. In 1742 he became physician to the Earl of Stair, then commanding the British army in Flanders; and in the same year he was constituted physician to the military hospital there. On the resignation of the Earl of Stair in 1745, Dr Pringle was appointed by the Duke of Cumberland physician-general to the forces in the Low Countries. He returned to Britain during the same year, and was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society on his passing through London. In 1747 and 1748 he attended the army abroad; and in 1749, having settled in London, he was made physician in ordinary to the Duke of Cumberland. He read a series of papers to the Royal Society, which are to be found in the Transactions, and which gained for him the gold medal of Sir Godfrey Copley. He married in 1752 a daughter of Dr Oliver, a physician in Bath; and in the same year he published his great work, entitled Observations on the Disorders of the Army in Camp and Garrison. In 1761 he was made physician to the household of the young Queen Charlotte, and physician in ordinary to the Queen in 1763. He was raised to the dignity of baronet of Great Britain in 1766, and was in 1768 made physician in ordinary to the King's mother, with a salary of £1,100 a year. After having acted for many years as a member of the council of the Royal Society, he was, in November 1772, elected president of that distinguished body. He received his last medical honour in 1774, as physician extraordinary to the King. After passing his seventieth year, he resigned his presidency, and resolved to spend the remainder of his days in his native country. Removing to Edinburgh in 1780, he was doomed to disappointment. He found the place much changed; the keen winds of the northern metropolis were too severe for him; and perhaps these evils were exaggerated by his increasing infirmities. He returned to London in September 1781, and died in the January following, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. There is a monument to him in Westminster Abbey, executed by Nollekens.

Thomas, a man distinguished not more for his poetical talents than for his ill-requited worth, was born at Blaiklaw in Teviotdale in 1789, and attended the university of Edinburgh. Lame, friendless, and barely sustaining himself by acting as a clerk in the Register Office of the Scottish capital, the rustic youth set himself to acquire an honourable position in life. His first efforts were made as much from necessity as from inclination in the province of literature. He became a contributor to Albyn's Anthology, and published in the Poetic Mirror a poem entitled "The Autumnal Excursion." The notice which these attempts gained induced him to lay down his clerkship for a time, and to devote all his attention to literary pursuits. He started and conducted the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, which was soon changed into Blackwood's Magazine. At the same time, he was editing the Edinburgh Star and Constable's Magazine, and publishing a volume entitled The Excursion, and other Poems. His activity, in fact, was in a fair way of securing for him a place in his new profession, until untoward events occurred to drive him to another field of labour. In 1820 Pringle set sail to try his fortune at Cape Colony. He succeeded in gaining the situation of government librarian at Cape Town. He then attempted to eke out his income by establishing an academy, by starting a periodical called the South African Journal, and by undertaking the editorship of The South African Commercial Advertiser. All these enterprises were succeeding most favourably when the despotic intolerance of the governor compelled him to discontinue them, and to repair to Britain in 1826. The life of Pringle only assumed a more gloomy character after his return to London. It is true that in 1827 he obtained the important and congenial position of secretary to the Anti-Slavery Society; but when that association had attained its object and was broken up in 1834, he was again thrown upon the world. All the efforts and influence he could employ to obtain a public appointment were fruitless. An attack of consumption at the same time rendered it absolutely necessary that he should seek a warmer clime. He was actually preparing to return to the Cape when he died suddenly on the 5th December 1834. Pringle's poetical works consist of stray effusions classed under the two heads of African Sketches and Ephemeralies. They were published in a collected form, accompanied with a memoir of the author, by Leitch Ritchie, London, 1839.